


Juno Steel and the Fox’s Smile

by supermega



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, M/M, dumb high school boys, first fanfic, nureyev is a theater kid, rita is the light of my life, what’s new
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-08
Updated: 2020-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:01:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23076694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/supermega/pseuds/supermega
Summary: Juno Steel’s life is routine. He does normal high school kid stuff, he’s not too involved in extracurriculars, he keeps his head down—he’s really just trying to survive until college.The new kid that rolls into town his sophomore year really isn’t trying to make any of that easy for him.
Relationships: Peter Nureyev/Juno Steel, Rita & Juno Steel
Comments: 4
Kudos: 16





	Juno Steel and the Fox’s Smile

The arrival of a new kid in a teeny-tiny little suburb like Oldesville is always exciting, and never at all worth all the wild anticipation that tends to build in Oldesville High. It always starts with just a spark, something small and unassuming—a teacher offhandedly mentioning a fresh face, students from one neighboring town or another bidding farewell to one of their classmates on their stories, someone excitedly mentioning that their cousin from elsewhere is moving in with them at slightly too high of a volume to be secretive—and always quickly builds into a great, roaring flame. All-consuming. Everybody in Oldesville (Oldtown, to most students) knows everybody, so the concept of anybody new is just thrilling. It becomes all anybody can talk about.

But then the student actually arrives, and the flame dies just as quickly as it sputtered to life. They aren’t new, not really. They’re a play on the same people all the residents have known all their lives, only different enough to be notable for a week before they fade into irrelevance. The school collectively breathes a sigh of quiet disappointment, resignation, and relief, and life moves on. The cycle starts anew.

The most recent new arrival would be no different, and Juno Steel was willing to bet on that. He considered himself an expert on Oldtown High—after 15 years in one place wherein you’ve spent the past three running a semi-successful private eye business out of your mom’s shitty minivan, you’d have to be really stupid to have not noticed any patterns about the way things went. He was sure it would be as wholly uneventful as ever.

Until he actually met the complete pain in the ass who was the new kid, Duke Rose.

Duke Rose rolled into town on a beam of goddamn starlight, it seemed. He was airy, mysterious, Juno’s age but twice as put-together and ten times more charismatic than Juno ever was or would be. It took him a day to find friends, and a week to find a fan club. It was like the whole school was… obsessed. Totally enamored with this stupid, stupidly dark-haired stranger with his stupid, stupid fox’s smile.

Juno expressed his disdain for the new kid to Rita at the lunch table two long, frustrating weeks after Duke’s first arrival at the school.

“He’s—he’s not special! I don’t get it,” he seethed, stabbing his fork into his lukewarm dish of pasta. Duke sat two tables away, surrounded by a gaggle of theater kids all clamoring to hear the latest bullshit story he’d weave about the last place he’d lived in. Normally he wouldn’t care enough to be angry, but he was sitting in Juno’s spot. Everybody knew that that was Juno and Rita’s table, and he was sitting right at it, his long limbs all akimbo across the two seats he had draped himself over. “It’s like he’s got everybody hypnotized. How can nobody else see this?”

“I don’t know, Mr. Steel, he’s pretty… magnetic. Like a movie star!” Rita grinned, resting her head on her hand as she admired Duke’s profile. Rita had been Juno’s best friend since middle school, when they’d gotten stuck sitting by each other in study hall. They’d discovered they had a shared interest in mysteries, albeit for wildly different reasons, and were inseparable from then on. She’d helped co-found Juno’s detective agency.

“Get a hold of yourself,” Juno snapped. “Seriously, who the hell does he think he is? He’s seen us sit there everyday, and suddenly it’s his table? Just like that?”

“Maybe he wanted to sit with us, Mr. Steel.” The suggestion was innocuous, but the raised eyebrows and telling look that accompanied it made Juno bristle up.

“Like hell he did. He’s entitled, Rita. And who wouldn’t be, with his life?” He threw his hands up, his dramatics flaring. “Everybody practically falls over themselves to kiss his ass. All his stupidly adoring fans. He always gets whatever the hell he wants!”

“Like our table,” Rita smiled.

“Like our table,” Juno agreed, darkly. “It’s just—it’s stupid! I should go over there right now and tell him so myself. Everybody else may be obsessed with the guy, but he doesn’t get to disrupt my—our—routine.” He had fully forgotten about his lunch, his hands curling into fists on his tray.

“Maybe you should, Mr. Steel. You’ve been starin’ at him an awful lot, anyways. He might start to get the wrong idea if you don’t set him straight.” She was still smiling.

That pushed him over the edge.

“Maybe I will,” he snarled, slamming his hands down on the table and pushing himself up. He was stomping over to Rose and his little posse before he could stop himself, his hands clenched into fists at his side. He didn’t know what exactly he would say yet, but he’d figure it out on the way.

Or he’d figure it out while he was waiting on all the stupid groupies surrounding the offending boy to be quiet.

Or he’d figure it out when Duke Rose was looking up at him with a mildly amused expression on his face, one eyebrow perfectly raised.

“Yes?” He asked, his voice lofty and grating. Juno hated that voice. He hated it so much. It took a cheese grater to his nerves and his pure frustration finally forced words out of his mouth, icy and mean.

“These seats belong to my friend and I. Move.”

“They do? Really?” Duke asked, smiling. Juno hated that smile, too. It was—hungry. Carnivorous. He looked like he would enjoy picking all the meat off of Juno’s bones, if he was given the chance. “I don’t see a seating chart.”

“Yeah, well, that’s because there isn’t one, smartass. But my friend and I sit here everyday, so it may not be official, but these are our seats. I will say it one more time. Move.”

“Hmm. I don’t think I will,” Duke mused, his eyes calm and his smile glinting. He loved this, Juno realized. He loved watching Juno seethe. He was having fun. “But I could ask some of my friends to move down, so you two can have a seat with us. How does that sound?”

“That sounds just fine to me, Mr. Rose!” Rita chirped, suddenly at Juno’s back. He flinched, more out of surprise than anything, and she placed a steadying hand on his shoulder blade. She already had both of their trays, and she was practically beaming. “Where should we set our stuff down?”

“Across from me should be fine.” He was speaking to Rita, but he never once broke eye contact with Juno. “Are we sure your friend here agrees with this arrangement?”

Juno was the first to break the gaze to glance around the table, meeting the eyes of many annoyed students. They were already here, his mind argued. He wasn’t going to get back to this table any other way, and he’d already made a big deal out of it, so he had to take what he could get. Besides, he didn’t want to see what these mindless slaves would do when their master was disrespected.

“Fine,” he managed to force the word out through gritted teeth. This was not what he wanted. None of this was what he wanted at all.

“Wonderful,” Duke smiled again, still sharp and hungry but less combative now. Juno was no longer a threat. “Joan, Samuel, would you mind making room?”

While Rose was directing his disgruntled fans, Juno felt Rita’s hand close around his arm. She set the trays down before pulling him a couple feet away, pulling out her phone, and pretending to show him something on the screen as she spoke. They had pulled this trick a thousand times, it’s how they had private conversations in front of other people. Even now, Juno felt Duke’s sharp gaze on his back.  
“Boss, this is perfect,” Rita’s eyes were wild and delighted, though Juno couldn’t imagine why. He himself was more pissed than he’d been in a long time.

“What the hell, Rita?” He hissed, his shoulders so tense that they were almost up to his ears. “Sitting with that jackass is perfect to you? Do you know what this means? He thinks we’re his, now. We belong to Duke goddamn Rose.”

“No, Boss, it means we can watch him. We got a case on Mr. Rose yesterday morning! I kept forgettin’ to tell you, ‘cause you were all worked up about your mom all day yesterday, and then last night I watched this really good documentary—‘Pageant Babies’, it’s all about these mom’s who get pregnant just to raise pageant kids, it was real interesting—so I forgot about anythin’ else, I was just up all night researchin’ pageants and thinkin’ ‘you know, could I have been a pageant baby?’, and then this morning you were—”

“Rita.” Juno suddenly yanked the phone out of her hand, holding it up to his face. It was enough to push her back on topic.

“Right, guess you were there. Well, anyways, we got a case! This girl, Lucy Wright—she was in Addams Family last year, remember—she came up to me and she asked how much she had to pay for us to look into Mr. Rose! Just like that!” She was practically bouncing in place, now, the pleated skirt she was wearing that day flouncing with her.

“How much did you tell her?” Juno asked, staring at her over the phone as his face set into a frown.

“Oh, trust me, Boss, it was a lot. She said she wanted to know everythin’ about him, but specifically if he was single and if he was tryin’ out for the spring musical. I said ‘payment up front, ‘cause Mr. Steel ain’t gonna be too happy about this case’ and she dished it out right then and there! Mr. Steel, she said she’ll pay us more once we tell her everythin’ we find out. This could be a huge payout!”

“Rita, I—” he glanced back at Rose, staring at them, and set his jaw“—I can’t do this. I can’t agree to this case.”

“Well, too bad, Boss, ‘cause you pretty much already did. We can plan after school today.” For someone who had just ruined Juno’s life, she looked entirely too proud of herself. “She already gave us the money, Mr. Steel, so there’s no going back now. You just gotta suck it up and play nice.”

Juno had the feeling that sitting back down at that lunch table would be like sealing his own coffin, but he reluctantly handed Rita’s phone back to her and half-turned back towards the laughing group that had invaded their calm lives.

“Play nice,” he muttered. “Sure.”

Juno had never wanted more to throw himself into oncoming traffic.


End file.
